Trying Times

Well it is day three of the New Year and already I find myself reaching for a cup of coffee. The good news is that I have cut down to just one sugar. Part of the problem is that it is very hot today and I have had a headache since last night. I just don't have the energy to do much at all.

The company that provides the energy for the generation of electricity had a problem with the gas supply to power their plant and asked for householders to turn off their airconditioners. As if that was going to happen. I said I would comply with their requests, if they led the way and turned off their AC's. It seems as most of Perth thought the same way and eventually the day was saved when they found an alternative energy source. Makes one wonder where they managed to find a heap of natural gas? Why do these companies think we have air coolers? Do they think that we will blindly turn them off because they cannot get their act together in the middle of a heatwave? Right now the temperature is 41.9C that is over 107F. My message to these people is to stop making the consumers the culprit. Luckily for us we live on a hospital grid and hardly ever suffer blackouts. That is reserved for the poor families living on the outskirts of the metropolitan area. Well they are not actually poor. It's just that they get their power turned off in a forty minutes rolling blackout.

Now to talk about food. I made a great smoothie for breakfast this morning. It consisted of 2 bananas frozen, the flesh of one small mango, half a cup of passionfruit juice, half a cup of soy milk and a handful of parsley. It was delicious and I am always amazed at the great job the vitamix does with the passionfruit seeds. The smoothie was not at all gritty.

Later I had a few grapes, an ounce of avocado and of course that darn coffee, which has now left a sour taste in my mouth.

Tomorrow it will be cooler and I will get my act together and eat sensibly. Oopps I said that yesterday too. Well at least I am in there trying.

Well I'll be Blowed

Well to say that I'm stunned is an understatement. Today I received an email from my destitute daughter saying that she is in Singapore with her daughter and will be home on the 16th of January. It seems that it slipped her mind to tell me at Christmas and again on the 27th. It also slipped her childrens minds too. I am so mad, I wasted $80 on buying her a small Dior perfume gift pack for Christmas because she said that she had no money to buy presents for anyone. I wouldn't have bothered if I had known that she was heading off to Singers, as she calls it. There perfumes are so cheap she could purchase it for a fraction of the price and redeem her sales tax at the airport. No wonder she is so poor. She has had three overseas trips in less than one year. Sorry Ali but I really don't understand.

As for me I am doing the best I can. I feel sad and disillusioned.

The nice thing is that I had a nice comment left on this blog. Thank you so much Helen for your kind comments, especially as it comes from someone with the same interests as myself. I read it out loud to my cat Inky, but she is too hot to concentrate. Hmm, I see 40C has been forcast for tomorrow. Whoopi doo!

A New Beginning and a New Year

Well it has certainly been a while since I last posted anything here. The seasons have moved on and the weather is warm again. My problems with my daughter have improved slightly, but I don't think they can ever return to what we had before.

However it is time to look forward and not back. This year holds so much promise for us all. One thing I will have to address is my very negative outlook on life. This leads to long periods of depression and it is not good for me, or anyone around me.

My goals for this year is to be happy and have a positive approach to life. To stop feeling that the world is spiralling out of control and to concentrate of the good things. Considering the state of the planet, the regional crisis, the looming threats of terrorism, I often wonder why our youth is so happy and able to cope.

When I was young we gave little thought to such things and we assumed that the world would continue to nurture and shelter us. There were not as many consumer goods to buy and we were content with what we had. My frinds and I did nor live to shop and we wore the same clothes year after year. Our biggest fears were the "bomb" and getting pregnant. The former I could do nothing about and the latter kept me from experimenting sexually, which in hindsight was not a good thing after all. Now my daughter just expects her children to be sexually active. I am so glad I am sixty something and not sixteen.

My eating goals are much the same this year. I want to eat the nutrient dense foods that I adore. I saw a quote on a website today that I approve of. It said "not to waste calories on foods you dislike". Now I agree with that to a point. If that means that we should just eat chocolate and cream doughnuts because we like them, well then I do not agree. However if on the other hand it means that we should choose our favourites from the healthy, nutrient dense foods, well then I am all for it.

I need to get over an ear problem that is causing me some pain right now. However I think it may be caused in part by too much time spent on a computer. Heck this is one thing I have embraced wholeheartedly. I just love my computer, my mp3 player and all the other stuff that the 00's bought along. Now I wonder what electronic marvels await us around the bend. Dick Tracey eat your heart out.

Facing The Tough Stuff

I have been struggling lately with a personal crisis. My lovely daughter has told me she does not want me to be her carer anymore and wants the small amount of money involved to go to her 15 year old daughter instead. Furthermore she says that I have been mishandling her money and it is not given to me to help me out financially. This is a government handout of $45 per week. Alysia says that I have not been spending it on projects approved by her. She has also accused me of "lording it over her", because I bought her a membership to the Royal Agricultural Show. Apparently I did not allow her the pleasure of paying for it herself.

The sad part is that I think she is suffering from the effects of large amounts of Ketamine and methadone, both prescribed for her by her doctors. My youngest daughter has bi-polar disorder and I think Alysia may be heading down that track. I miss her terribly, but she will not see me, nor will I beg.

Sadly I now have to deal with my new reality and find some way of filling the void.

Life sucks sometimes.

Is It OK?

Ok I have missed blogging for a few days because I am really depressed right now. I feel so flat and not my usual chirpy self. However for me at least, this is not all that unusual. I have a daughter that is not in the best of health at the moment and she has had some serious pain over the last five years following a car accident. We are good friends ans well as mother and daughter and do a lot of things together. She has been really snappy for a while now and I have let it get to me. Now this is unusual as I am able to shake this off nine times out of ten. However all I can think of lately is some rather hurtful remarks.
So instead of nurturing this hurt I have made an appointment to see my local GP. Maybe I need someone to talk to? She will offer me some anti-depressants and I will say thank you and never get the prescription filled. This happens quite a lot as I know that no amount of pills will help and that just talking about my perceived problems will be of more benefit than the drugs. Recently there has been a couple of well known sporting personalities that have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. They were both depressed and on drugs. Sadly one died and the other has his life in tatters. Both were heavily reliant on anti-depressants. So excuse me, but I have no wish to follow them down that slippery slope, ever.

So What?

I have been thinking about my obsession with food. I have come to the conclusion that I am definitely not orthorexic as I have been eating somewhat off plan now for the last three weeks. It must be the change fron the cooler months because I am eating things I don't often consume and I am unrepentant about this.
Strangely the world has not stopped turning and I am feeling ok. I am looking forward to the wonderful stone fruit season that is just around the corner.

Orthorexia?

An ETL forum buddy has posted an interesting thread on her blog about the definition of the word orthorexia. Somehow I wondered if I was indeed an orthorexic. Because I am very lazy and have not read the article I am using Bree's quote from veggilicious.

"In the book Health Food Junkies: Overcoming the Obsession With Healthful Eating" by Steven Bratman, MD. He describes orthorexia this way:

"In fact, it is transferring too much of life's meaning onto food that makes orthorexia an eating disorder. If you simply eat healthy food but don't give it more of a place in your life than it's really due, you have a good diet - a laudable goal. But when you use food to drain away the energy from other parts of your life, you are impoverishing your soul. Instead of dealing with your real feelings - your real challenges, interests, desires, and needs - you pretend to find them in food. You transfer anxiety over how your life is going to anxiety over what you are going to eat."

Hope you don't mind Bree? I found Bree's discussion very honest and indeed helpful. It is good to keep our obsessive qualities in check and not let them completely rule our lives.
To see it in full go to' veggielicious.blogspot.com